India Sets Pakistan Conditions for Peace Talks

[lot]

India Sets Pakistan Conditions for Peace Talks


By REUTERS
Filed at 1:38 p.m. ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India rebuffed Pakistan's call for negotiations on the future of Kashmir Tuesday and said peace talks could only resume if its neighbor stopped promoting ''cross-border'' terrorism in the disputed Himalayan territory.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Raminder Singh Jassal said New Delhi would review the situation in Kashmir after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when its temporary suspension of hostilities against Kashmiri militants is due to end.

But he stopped short of saying the truce may be extended, as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had suggested Monday.

Jassal said there was nothing ``substantially different'' in Pakistan's response to the cease-fire -- an order to its forces on the Kashmir Line of Control with India to show restraint.

But he said the government hoped Islamabad's statement heralded a meaningful change in its attitude.

``It is our hope that with all the initiatives for restoration of peace and normalcy taken by (Vajpayee), Pakistan would now be persuaded to cease promotion of cross-border terrorism so as to create an environment suitable for resumption of the composite dialogue,'' he said in a statement.

The chief minister of India's strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir state said his party would reject any peace talks aimed at dividing the Himalayan province.

``It will never happen. We were, are, and would continue to be part of India,'' Farooq Abdullah told a rally in Jammu, the winter capital of India's only Muslim-majority state.

He said his ruling National Conference party would be at the ``forefront'' of any peace talks over Kashmir but accused Pakistan of indulging in a ``proxy war'' against India.

PAKISTAN CALLS FOR TALKS

The so-called composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over Kashmir, was last held in 1998.

Since then, they have fought an undeclared war at Kargil in the northern heights of Indian-controlled Kashmir, and India has refused to resume talks until its neighbor stops arming and pushing militants across the frontier.

Pakistan denies sponsoring the 11-year-old rebellion against Indian rule in Kashmir, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives, and says it provides only moral and diplomatic support to the local people's struggle for self-determination.

Earlier in Islamabad Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar told Reuters Television that the only way India's cease-fire could become permanent was through negotiations on Kashmir's future.

Jassal said that while India was committed to an early resumption of the composite dialogue, it expected Pakistan to address its concerns about ``cross-border terrorism, infiltration into India and aiding and abetment of violence.''

However, the spokesman told a news conference later there had been a ``recognizable reduction of firing'' along the frontier dividing Pakistan-controlled Kashmir from India's Jammu and Kashmir state since Vajpayee's November 19 truce initiative.

He said attempts at infiltration had also ``not taken place in any marked manner,'' but added that this was largely due to Indian security forces' greater vigilance at the border.

NO ROOM FOR TRIPARTITE TALKS

Jassal reiterated India's readiness to talk with all parties and groups in Jammu and Kashmir state, including militants.

``It is abundantly clear that there is, in this, no room for what are termed as tripartite talks,'' he said, referring to dialogue involving India, Pakistan and separatist groups.

India held unprecedented talks with the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen militant group, whose cadres represent more than half of the guerrillas operating in Kashmir, earlier this year.

But the process quickly broke down and Hizbul took up the gun again after New Delhi refused to include Pakistan.

It has also been talking behind the scenes with the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference since early this year to begin negotiations on the future of the region, but the two sides have so far failed to find a common starting point.

Hurriyat is an alliance of 22 social, political and religious groups fighting politically for the implementation of a 1948 U.N. resolution which calls for a plebiscite to determine whether Kashmir should be folded into India or Pakistan.